Future Sound Of London

TOTP 25 OCT 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

Three days before this TOTP aired, I travelled the short distance from Manchester to Bolton to see my beloved Chelsea play. They’d been drawn away to Bolton in the League Cup and my Wanderers supporting mate Steve invited me to go with him and his mates to watch the game. Predictably, we lost 2-1 after taking the lead and my hopes of seeing my team finally win a trophy were dealt a severe blow. This was supposed to be the new, exciting Chelsea of Ruud ‘sexy football’ Gullitt, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Di Matteo and yet we got turned over by rather less glamorous opponents. In short, to paraphrase a football saying, we couldn’t do it away on a cold Tuesday night at Bolton. I returned home a very disappointed man. But at least I returned home. Chelsea vice-chairman Matthew Harding had also been at the game and would lose his life in a helicopter crash on the way back to London. Harding had contributed huge amounts of money to the club helping to finance those exotic signings and also the redevelopment of the Chelsea ground. He also had a great relationship with the fans socialising with them at the games and in the pub. He was one of them rather than a faceless director. He also contributed £1 million to the Labour Party and the helicopter that went down had often been used by Tony Blair as leader of the party and prior to him becoming Prime Minister. In a parallel universe, the future of the whole country might have been different rather than just Chelsea Football Club’s. My wish to see my blue boys finally win something came true just six months later as they won the FA Cup at Wembley. Matthew Harding never lived to see that moment.

After a very sombre opening to this post, let’s get back to the music and hope for some uplifting tunes. Our hosts are Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley and we start with a bang via a cracking song from Suede. The second single from their No 1 album “Coming Up”, “Beautiful Ones”, for me, even surpassed previous hit “Trash” in terms of immediacy and…well…sparkle. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised as supposedly it was written by guitarist Richard Oakes purposely to be a chart success and was originally called “Dead Leg” after bass player Matt Osman threatened to give Oakes a dead leg if he couldn’t come up with a Top 10 hit. Presumably that particular punishment was not dispensed as the single peaked at No 8.

The performance here is a curious one. Keyboard player Neil Codling is out front for some reason, thumbs in his pockets, occasionally leaning into his mike to mouth a few lyrics. Why wasn’t he behind a synth or something as per usual? Weren’t there any keyboard parts in this track? Was he auditioning for Brett Anderson’s position in the band? As it turned out, Codling would actually take on a lot more of the vocals duties along with an increased input into song writing later in his Suede career. He left the band in 2001 due to chronic fatigue syndrome though he would return when they reconvened in 2010.

The lyric in “Beautiful Ones” about ‘your babies going crazy’ always puts me in mind of this scene from Swingers which was released in America a week before this TOTP was broadcast. “How long till you call your babies?”…

Next, we’re straight into one of the biggest dance tunes of the year, nay the decade…how about ever?! Steve Lamacq rather undermines my ardour by just referring to it as a “really cool track” but “Insomnia” by Faithless is surely more than that. A regular in all those ‘top club tunes’ polls by the likes of MTV Dance and Mixmag, it remains a timeless classic. Indeed, I have a friend in her late 70s and she loves Faithless!

Comprising of Maxi Jazz, Jamie Catto, Sister Bliss and Rollo (yes, Dido’s brother), they’d had two minor hit singles in 1995 with “Salva Ames (Save Me)” and the initial release of “Faithless” which had only made No 27 in the December as it got lost in the Christmas rush. March of 1996 saw another attempt on the charts but “Don’t Leave” could only make one week inside the Top 40 at No 34. Come the Autumn though, “Faithless” was rereleased and this time, it crashed into the charts at No 3 and easily topped the Dance Chart. Its subject matter struck a chord with clubbers who had trouble nodding off after a substance filled night of raving (or whatever it is clubbers did back then). The original album version is nine minutes long but it was edited down to three and a half for radio with the memorable keyboard riff being intended to sound like Underworld. Perhaps unusually for an album by a dance act, their album “Reverence” would go on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK and achieve platinum status and yet weirdly would get no higher in the charts than No 26. Where’s the justice in that? And I thought God was a DJ.

“You’re Gorgeous” by Babybird is up to No 6 on its way to a peak of No 3 which means a reshowing of their studio performance from the other week is required. I recall that when this came on the shop stereo in the Our Price in Stockport where I was working one busy Saturday afternoon, it happens to coincide with a group of ‘lads’ entering the shop and deciding to sing along at the top of their voices very badly. Saturdays were stressful enough in a record shop as it was and I could have done without this as well. I approached the group and asked them to pack it in but this only served to make them sing louder whilst eating their Greggs pasties and dripping flakes of pastry all over the floor (which was another bugbear of mine). Tossers.

Given the song’s much misunderstood subject matter, another thing that springs to mind when I hear “You’re Gorgeous” is another even more unpleasant memory, that of a particularly harrowing episode of the crime drama Prime Suspect the plot of which revolved around a pornographer who murdered a young girl after convincing her that he was a fashion photographer. Bloody hell! Death, murder…this post is bloody miserable so far! Please let there be some joyful tunes coming up to lighten the mood…

Hmm. Future Sound Of London wasn’t really what I had in mind. Experimental, ambient soundscapes are all very well but I need something to cheer me up and “My Kingdom” just isn’t doing it for me. I mean, it’s an interesting sound I guess and the accompanying video was probably cutting edge at the time with its morphing graphics but it’s kind of leaving me cold when I need something to give me a nice warm, fuzzy feeling that tells me everything is going to be OK – there must be a huge demand for such music whatever form it might take given the current state of the world.

You have to hand it to those Future Sound Of London boys though – they were ahead of their time. The album this track was taken from (“Dead Cities”) was promoted by a tour called ‘the f**k rock ‘n’ roll tour’ that allowed them to play live events via ISDN without leaving a studio. This was in 1996, well before the dawn of the digital age we all live in now. Hell, the vast majority of us didn’t even have a very basic mobile phone back then. In 2024, the idea of being separated from our mobiles for even an hour can cause a meltdown amongst many of us – ‘a phone, a phone…my kingdom for a phone’. Ahem.

Hands up who knew that Gina G had more hits than just “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit”. OK. Keep your hands up if you can name any of them. I thought as much. You’d have to be a superfan to still have your hands in the air at this point. “I Belong To You” was the first of four further hits and it was almost identical to her Eurovision song. And why not? ‘If it’s not broken…’, ‘Strike while the iron’s hot’ and so on and so on…It would have made sense for her to go with an almost identical sound – anything other than that would have been folly. Gina surely wouldn’t have been expected to reinvent herself as a serious artist within months of only being known as a Eurovision entrant? If she’d returned with a big ballad would people have accepted it? I’m not sure. Repeating the formula certainly worked for Gina giving her a none too shabby chart peak of No 6. And there’s more…she would have a further three hits after and none of them were a remix of “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” meaning that she never had to plead “Ooh aah…just a little hit…please”. Yeah, sorry about that.

This week’s ’Flashback’ slot features “Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)” by Enya. I’m far too behind with this post to comment on this so here’s what I had to say about this one in a post from my 80s blog.

TOTP 24 NOV 1988

If it’s good enough for Enya, it’s certainly good enough for E–Motion. Look, I haven’t got the time nor inclination to review something that I commented on as recently as six months ago especially when it’s as big a heap of shit as “The Naughty North And The Sexy South”. Here’s my thoughts on this one from when it was originally a hit in the February of this year and peaked at No 20 (it was rereleased in the October peaking at No 17).

TOTP 01 FEB 1996

By 1996, Madonna’s career had reached the point it was always meant to reach – i.e. that she would play the part of Eva Perón in a film version of Evita. Rumours had been circulating for years that she was destined for this role and it finally came to be. A cinema version of the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber 1978 musical, its soundtrack was always likely to sell in bucketloads even before you added in the superstar factor that Madonna brought to the project. However, the song we all know from the musical – “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” – wasn’t the first one to be released from the project. No, the first track that we heard Madonna singing from Evita wasn’t from the original musical at all – it was a brand new composition written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to promote the film and to secure an Oscar nomination (it would go on to win the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song). “You Must Love Me” was that song but despite its recognition, it wasn’t the massive hit that many may have expected. It made No 10 in the UK, No 18 in America and didn’t top the chart anywhere in the world. It certainly sounded like a huge hit or rather it sounded like a Lloyd Webber/Rice song with trademark haunting melody and a huge string backing – in fact you could be forgiven for thinking that it had been part of the original musical soundtrack so seamlessly did it sit alongside those other songs from the 1978 West End production.

The video shown here is just a plug for the film really with clips from the movie interspersed with a heavily pregnant Madonna singing in a room with her bump hidden behind a piano. The film made $141 million at the box office against a budget of $55 million and received mixed reviews from the press with the main criticism being that it was a case of style over substance though the soundtrack was a redeeming factor. It received a total of 23 film award nominations winning 12 including one Oscar and three Golden Globes. I’ve still yet to watch it though my wife took her Mum to see it at the cinema and her review was that it was one of the loudest films she’d ever sat through.

Cast are back next with their biggest ever hit “Flying”. I was a bit sniffy about this song the last time I reviewed it which on reflection was possibly a tad unfair seeing as it crapped all over most of its chart contemporaries (yes, I’m looking at you E-Motion). Originally a non-album single, it was later included in the band’s 2004 compilation “The Collection” which must be one of the least comprehensive retrospectives ever given that it does not feature the hits “Alright”, “Sandstorm”, “Walkaway”, “Guiding Star” or “Beat Mama”. Presumably a licensing issue, I guess you get what you pay for – it was a budget range album that was ineligible for a UK Album Chart ranking. A definitive collection called “Cast: The Singles 1995-2017” was released on white vinyl in 2018 however.

The Spice Girls are straight in at No 1 with their second single “Say You’ll Be There”. It’s interesting that although it is the desert based, high-tech ninja warriors video that I immediately think of when I hear this song, TOTP did not once show that promo instead having the group in the studio every time (although I think one may have been a just a repeat of a previous appearance). Which raises the question how had I seen the promo at all? On The Chart Show? Maybe but that was on TV on Saturday mornings when I would have been at work most weeks. I can’t think of any other music shows from around that time? They weren’t such a big deal already that they’d made it onto national news programmes surely? However I had seen it, I wasn’t alone. One David Beckham, legend has it, was so taken with Posh Spice in her black PVC catsuit that he vowed there and that they would become a couple. And lo and behold, two became one…or something.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1SuedeBeautiful OnesNo but I had the album
2FaithlessInsomniaI did not
3BabybirdYou’re GorgeousNope
4Future Sound Of LondonMy KingdomNever happening
5Gina GI Belong To YouYou didn’t belong to me though Gina – no
6EnyaOrinoco Flow (Sail Away)Nah
7E-MotionThe Naughty North And The Sexy SouthDefinitely not
8MadonnaYou Must Love MeNo
9CastFlyingNegative
10Spice GirlsSay You’ll Be ThereAnd no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0024zk6/top-of-the-pops-25101996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 25 MAY 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

With one notable exception, the line up for this TOTP is one of the most underwhelming and uninspiring I’ve seen for a while. An horrendous No 1 and a load of dance tunes I don’t remember and probably wouldn’t like if I did. At least it’s a ‘golden mic’ presenter slot with an interesting choice of host(s) this week. Stewart Lee and Richard Herring were a comedy duo who met at Oxford University and were contemporaries of the likes of Emma Kennedy. After writing for Chris Morris’ Radio 4 comedy vehicle On The Hour, they switched to Radio 1 writing and starring in Fist Of Fun which would eventually transfer to TV via BBC2. The first series had only just finished by the time of this TOTP so Lee and Herring’s profile was presumably pretty high and bestowed upon them a shot at presenting the network’s flagship music show. I’m not sure that the pair were on my comedy radar at this time though I have seen Stewart Lee live subsequently and he was very funny. The double act seems to be based on Lee being sarcastic and cutting and Herring being frivolous and silly. He strays into something a bit more uncomfortable though at the top of the show by asking if he might be in heaven as he’s surrounded by sweaty, teenage girls. Such a remark possibly wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow back then but in these post Operation Yewtree times, it doesn’t sit well.

Anyway, we start with Incognito who I had forgotten were still having hits as late as 1995. To be fair to myself, my knowledge of them only extends to “Always There” from 1991 and their cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” in 1992. However, there is much more to them than that starting with the fact that they had been in existence since 1979 and have a roster of members past and present (they are still a going concern) they could rival The Fall and The Waterboys. Talking of Incognito members, I had to do a double take but my suspicions were confirmed by @TOTPFacts that the guy on bongos would go on to be pretty famous for something else…

Well there you go. Professor Brian Cox wasn’t the only celebrity to play in a 90s band before becoming famous in a different profession. As for Incognito’s tune, “Everyday” is actually quite pleasant as far as it goes but it does smack of being a rewrite of “Always There” which wasn’t even their song in the first place.

After Lee and Herring have a discussion about Jon Bon Jovi’s unusual pronunciation of Milan as ‘Milarn’ from his to camera piece at the top of the show, we move onto a dance tune I certainly wouldn’t have liked back in 1995 (I don’t actually remember it) and definitely don’t like 28 years later. Nightcrawlers were coming off the back of a huge hit in “Push The Feeling On” – you might know it as the “Just Sold My Car” song for the We Buy Any Car ad – and “Surrender Your Love” was more of the same though a bit watered down and (clearly in my case) not as memorable.

Despite or maybe because of his rather extreme look of long blond hair and shades which ages him terribly – he was 31 at the time of this broadcast – the TOTP cameras seem to deliberately avoid having vocalist John Reid on screen for longer than a couple of seconds at a time preferring to focus on the multitude of dancers on stage. It really is quite noticeable. Maybe the show’s producers were trying to recreate the feel of a nightclub where this track would have no doubt gone down well with mid 90s house music fiends. “Surrender Your Love” peaked at No 7.

Next an exclusive live by satellite performance of “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan but, as with many of these ‘exclusives’, it fails to live up to its title. Coming in direct from Los Angeles, you might have thought the location would be the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre, Venice or Santa Monica beach or at least somewhere with the Hollywood sign in the background wouldn’t you? What we get is an outdoor basketball court that could be anywhere. Montell doesn’t even have a cordless microphone so he can’t move around much and it’s left to his three backing dancers to try and liven things up a bit – they don’t. Honestly not sure what executive producer Ric Blaxill was thinking here.

Some more comments from Lee and Herring that have not aged well next. Describing Scatman John as “an old, stuttering man” (Herring) who “didn’t let age or his inability to speak get in the way of having a No 3 hit” (Lee) before introducing him with a stutter (Herring again) might get you cancelled these days or as Lee might say in his stand up shows, “you can get put in jail these days just for presenting Top Of The Pops”. Or something. “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” was indeed up to No 3 but it would go no further. Nonsensical novelty hit or genre bending innovation? You decide.

Lee and Herring indulge in a bit of sexual innuendo now reminding the watching audience that if it hurts, you’re not doing it right before introducing “Hurts So Good” by Jimmy Somerville. As with Incognito earlier, I’d totally forgotten that Jimmy was still having hits as late as this. In my head, his chart bothering days pretty much ended with his very successful singles collection album over Christmas 1990. I wasn’t too far off to be fair but I’d forgotten about “Dare To Love” which became his first album released since then when it appeared in 1995. “Hurts So Good” was the second single from it and was a cover of a song made famous by Susan Cadogan who had a No 4 hit with it in 1975. I don’t know Susan’s version and I don’t remember Jimmy’s but I have to say I don’t feel like I missed out on much. Somerville had form for doing reggae-fied covers. He did one of the Bee Gees song “To Love Somebody” to promote that singles collection and “Hurts So Good” falls into the sane category for me. I just don’t think Jimmy’s high falsetto voice suits reggae. For me, he’s always been better on a barnstorming Hi-NRG type track. This would prove to be his final UK Top 40 entry with his first coming back in 1984 with “Smalltown Boy” as part of Bronski Beat.

It’s time for the second live by satellite exclusive performance on the show tonight as Bon Jovi perform “This Ain’t A Love Song” live from Milan (or is it Milarn?). Lee and Herring cue it up for us by the former declaring that he hates Bon Jovi and I, for one, believe him. A simple search of ‘What music does Stewart Lee like’ on Google gives loads of results including a list of his favourite 13 albums. Some of them, I’ve never even heard of the artist let alone the album but the ones I did know include REM (despite him saying how much they’ve disappointed him and are awful), Miles Davis, Madness and The Byrds. He’s also a lifelong fan of The Fall but can no longer listen to Morrissey despite his attachment to The Smiths. I don’t see any room in there at all for Bon Jovi’s brand of rock.

As for said brand, the band were at a bit of a crossroads as to what direction to take after the mega selling “Keep The Faith” album that they’d toured and promoted for two years. That album had seen them develop a more mature sound and lay off the hair metal histrionics of “Slippery When Wet” and “New Jersey”. The change hadn’t affected their commercial appeal with sales of 8 million worldwide so which direction should they go in now? Some early demos were trashed by Jon Bon Jovi as not being up to scratch and the gap where a new album should have been was filled by a Best Of called “Crossroads” (oh I get that title now) and a couple of new songs. A rethink was required which led the band to a darker album entitled “These Days”. Yet again, a new sound didn’t result in a downturn in sales with the album selling even more than “Keep The Faith” worldwide. It also achieved critical acclaim being ranked No 2 by Q Magazine in their “Top 50 albums of 1995” list. Lead single “This Ain’t A Love Song” would be the first of four consecutive Top 10 singles in the UK taken from the album when it peaked at No 6. It’s an accomplished rock ballad though its verses remind me of their 1987 forgotten hit “Never Say Goodbye”. A word on this TOTP appearance. What’s so exclusive about performing to an empty venue regardless of it being in Milan/Milarn?

Ah, some more dodgy rhetoric from Lee and Herring about following Michelle Gayle around and restraining orders. It sounds awful now but again, was it deemed acceptable back then? Maybe these TOTP repeats should come with those sensitivity warnings that say ‘this programme is from *insert the year* and features themes and attitudes from the time”.

Anyway, Michelle is back with her fourth chart hit “Freedom” though I don’t recall this one either. Nothing to do with George Michael (though Robbie Williams was just a year or so away from a cover version of that particular song), it’s a pleasant if insubstantial pop ditty which Michelle sells enthusiastically even impressively high kicking her way through it at one point. Her all woman set up of two keyboard players and two backing dancers could almost have been designed to flick the V’s at the hosts and their misogyny. I was rather distracted though by the singalong ‘Okay’ bit towards the end which put me in mind of Lenny Henry’s unfortunate early ‘comedy’ character Algernon Razmatazz and his ‘Ooookaaaay’ catchphrase. My god, reviewing these TOTP repeats is a culturally sensitive minefield.

Yes! The notable exception to tonight’s underwhelming running order is here. After being an ‘exclusive’ last week, McAlmont & Butler have crashed into the charts at No 10 with…ahem…”Yes”. There was some debate online about whether Richard Herring calls his co-host a ‘wanker’ or a ‘wassock’ in the intro to this one after this repeat aired but he clearly says the latter. The man himself took to Twitter/X to confirm:

This brilliant song has helped me through some difficult times at work in the past and remains a permanent in my life. I was meant to see Bernard Butler live in Manchester around 1998 when he was touring his fine debut solo album “People Move On” but he cancelled at the last minute. Years later though I did catch David McAlmont live in Hull when he did a show of Prince songs. An engaging storyteller, he did a fab version of “Raspberry Beret” restyled as “Guyanan Beret“ – his mother was from Guyana. Sadly I can’t find any clips of it online.

Aargh! I’d forgotten that Robson & Jerome’s No 1 was a double A-side! Not content with hacking their way through “Unchained Melody” they’ve also taken the musical equivalent of a dull spoon to “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. The song recorded by ‘Forces’ Sweetheart’ Dame Vera Lynn in 1942 and one of the songs most associated with WWII has also been covered by the likes of Connie Francis, Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves, Acker Bilk and Steeleye Span. It was also recorded by The Righteous Brothers and was a hit for them in the UK in 1966. Was that the reason why Robson & Jerome laid down a version of it? Because it dovetailed neatly with “Unchained Melody” which Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield also famously recorded? Or is that just me trying to add some synchronicity that isn’t there? It’s just that it seems an odd choice of song – or was it? Was this just more cynical positioning from Simon Cowell. Did he look at the Soldier Soldier audience and work out that an album and single by two of its characters might be most likely to be purchased by an older demographic who maybe wouldn’t normally buy anything that was in the charts and so a version of “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover” would be the perfect track to reel them in?

We end with one of the weirdest song titles of the year, no any year. “The Far-Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman” was the latest of EP by The Future Sound Of London. As a pop kid, none of their stuff ever made any sense to me. This one is no different. It sounds like the incidental music to Blakes 7 put through a high spin washing cycle. Thankfully we only get a few seconds of this as the credits kick in.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1IncognitoEverydayI did not
2NightcrawlersSurrender Your LoveNo
3Montell JordanThis Is How We Do ItNope
4Scatman JohnScatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)Never happening
5Jimmy SomervilleHurts So GoodNah
6Bon JoviThis Ain’t A Love SongNegative
7Michelle GayleFreedomIt’s another no
8McAlmont & ButlerYesYES!
9Robson & JeromeUnchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of DoverWhat do you think?!
10The Future Sound Of LondonThe Far-Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A MadmanAs if

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s8tj/top-of-the-pops-25051995

TOTP 10 AUG 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

This TOTP aired on a Wednesday rather than the normal Thursday due to the BBC’s coverage of the European Athletics Championships taking place in Helsinki. A couple of years later, the show was permanently shifted from a Thursday to a Friday night initially in a 7pm time slot before some idiot made the decision to move it to a 7.30 start time thereby putting it up against Coronation Street. What on earth was the thinking behind that decision? It’s as if someone was deliberately trying to kill the show off. Hmm. This was also a ‘live’ episode so be on alert because, as Commander Shore said on Stingray, “Anything can happen in the next half hour…”

Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is tonight’s host and the first act he introduces are Red Dragon featuring Brian and Tony Gold with their hit single “Compliments On Your Kiss”. I went into the back story of this one the last time it was on the show so I don’t propose to go onto that all over again. Instead, I’d quite like to talk about this performance and more specifically the staging of it.

I can understand the naff, cardboard cut out palm trees as it’s a lilting, summery tune that conjures up images of sunny beaches and obviously the neon lips do tie in with the song title but is that meant to be a smouldering volcano in the background? What’s that all about? Oh, is it meant to be a dragon as in Red Dragon? It’s hard to see because of the dry ice pouring out of it but I really can’t detect much of a dragon shape in there. They really should have blown the props budget on something like this from Star Trek…

Now, here’s an immediate chance for the TOTP producers to redeem themselves props wise as The Brand New Heavies perform “Midnight At The Oasis”. So the clue is in the song title guys. What image comes to mind when you think of an oasis (that’s an oasis not Oasis as in the Gallagher brothers whose band were hardly household names at this point anyway)? Palm trees? A natural water source like a spring or well? That’s the classic take on it when people see mirages in the desert no? Easy. So we do have some palm trees or at least some vegetation (whether it’s fake or not) which is an upgrade on the cardboard version that Red Dragon got. There’s no water to be seen though but I guess Health & Safety would have put a stop to any of that with all those electrics about. However, what is not understandable is the pyramid towering large at the stage at the back. Why is that there? The pyramids have nothing to do with an oasis do they? That’s just really lazy.

As for the song, I would suggest that this is the band’s most well known (though not biggest) hit what with it being a cover of a song that had already been a hit in the UK. The original was by Maria Muldaur and peaked at No 21 in the UK in 1974. The Brand New Heavies’ version is a pretty faithful to its predecessor and was perfect daytime radio playlist fodder for that long, hot summer of 1994.

If it’s Simon Mayo in the presenter seat then we are bound to get an awful attempt at comedy from him at some point and it comes in his intro for Future Sound Of London – “which is almost certainly coughing, gasping and wheezing” he quips – what a card! Anyway, I remember there being a certain amount of fuss about these electronic dance pioneers and I definitely remember the rather striking artwork on the cover of their “Lifeforms” album though I couldn’t have told you what it sounded like at all. Listening back to the title track that was released as a single, there’s an awful lot going on in there; some trip-hop beats, some ambient stylings and an otherworldly vocal from Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. All a bit too overwhelming for my pop ear* though with the whole thing not helped by the visually overstimulating computer graphics video that seemed to be all the rage in this year (didn’t we see a similar type of thing from Pet Shop Boys for their “Liberation” single recently?). “Lifeforms” (the single) peaked at No 14 whilst its album counterpart made it to No 6.

*Sounds like Popeye’s long, lost cousin

Now I did attempt some humour in a recent post about the name of the next act but that doesn’t excuse Simon Mayo from doing the same here with his reference to Head & Shoulders. Away with you! Shampoo (for it is they) are on the show again to promote their single “Trouble” and I’m drawn to the fact that for the second time, their performance hardly involves any movement by the duo at all. They just sort of stand there, slightly crouched leaning into other for the duration. Were they not confident dancers or can’t you actually dance to their track? Judging by the efforts of the studio audience, it might be the latter.

The last time they were on, I talked about how they somehow carved out a little footnote for themselves in pop history despite only having a smattering of hit singles (of which this was the biggest). What I didn’t mention was that they invented ‘Girl Power’ before the Spice Girls took all the credit for it. Well, invented is probably a stretch but their final hit was called “Girl Power” and it charted one week before Sporty, Baby, Scary, Posh and Ginger’s debut “Wannabe”. To be fair though, although Geri Halliwell admitted in a 2016 interview that she pinched the phrase from Shampoo, Jacqui and Carrie themselves probably weren’t the original originators as Martin Fry once sang. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

“Trouble” was covered by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine as the B-side to their 1995 single “The Young Offender’s Mum”.

Of the many sub genres of dance music that did the rounds in the 90s, surely one of the nastiest was Eurodance covers of rock and pop songs. We’d already had the likes of East Side Beat desecrating Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like The Wind” and Rage do a similar hatchet job on “Run To You” by Bryan Adams but by 1994 the timeline between the original track and the naff dance treatment was shortening. In the case of DJ Miko, the time elapsed was just one year from 4 Non Blondes taking “What’s Up” to No 2 and them releasing their vile version. What a truly awful record this was. A tacky, happy hardcore backing applied to an unconvincing rock vocal and…well, that was it really. DJ Miko wasn’t really a DJ nor in fact an actual person but an umbrella term for an Italian dance collective fronted by keyboardist Monier Quartararo Gagliardo featuring a number of studio vocalists with the whole thing going managed by Milan based record company Dig It International. The latter had quite an appropriate name as the whole sorry enterprise should have been buried at the conception stage with a clear instruction for the soil never to be disturbed.

https://youtu.be/2SyKio7ksuU

Right, what’s Mayo on about now? Woodstock 2? When did that happen? Well, turns out he was right as this follow up festival to its legendary predecessor took place in Saugerties, New York (70 miles from the site of the 1969 original) on the weekend following this TOTP. I suppose he had to get that right as he was plugging Radio 1’s coverage of it. Anyway, billed as 2 More Days of Peace and Music, it was, by all accounts, poorly managed with the size of the crowd (estimates had it at 350,000) meaning security rules and policies surrounding alcohol etc were unenforceable. Tragically, three people died whilst attending the festival. As it was a three day event, the number of artists appearing was colossal including Metallica, Aerosmith, Green Day, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel…I could go on but won’t. Look it all up for yourself on Wikipedia like I had to.

For a festival promoted as being about peace, there were certainly a lot of incidents that didn’t fit the vibe. The lead singer of Jackyl, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, took a chainsaw to a stool and fired a rifle in the air. Meanwhile, the large volume of rainfall created a huge mud bath on the site that resulted in the break out of mud fights between both Green Day and Primus and their audiences. Nine Inch Nails admitted to playing the festival purely for the appearance fee to offset the cost of their current tour – so much for peace and music then. A number of artists that had performed at the original Woodstock reappeared for the 1994 version including The Band, Santana, Crosby, Stills & Nash and the next artist on this TOTP – Joe Cocker.

Now my knowledge of Joe is limited to say the least. I know he was from Sheffield, that he had a very gravelly voice, that he had a No 1 with a cover of The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” that was used as the theme tune to The Wonder Years, that he duetted with Jennifer Warnes on that song from An Officer And A Gentleman and…well, that he’s dead I suppose. I certainly don’t know about this song – “The Simple Things” – without looking it up online. It was taken from an album called “Have A Little Faith” and would reach No 17 but it seems very lacklustre to me and entirely forgettable. Sadly, Joe would die of lung cancer in 2014 having smoked 40 cigarettes a day until he quit in 1991.

The early to mid 90s saw a host of female soul singers* come to the fore. Juliet Roberts, Shara Nelson, Dina Carroll, N’Dea Davenport who we saw with The Brand New Heavies earlier…add to that list Carleen Anderson who, having found initial success with Young Disciples, carved out a solo career for herself. “True Spirit” was not only the title track from her album but the third hit single on the spin for her in 1994. It doesn’t do a lot for me though. Clearly she has a great voice but the track itself seems so sluggish and a bit to caught up in trying to display its soul credentials. I think that for each of those singles, Carleen has appeared on TOTP and every time, the show’s caption person has noted that she is the goddaughter of James Brown. Give it a rest! Despite what I said about all those female soul singers, anybody would think it’s a man’s man’s man’s world.

* Is that Caron Wheeler of Soul II Soul fame up there with Carleen on stage doing backing vocals? Yet another soul singer that came to prominence in the 90s!

No! It can’t be! Not again! Is this the fourth time Let Loose have been on the show performing “Crazy For You”?! What more am I supposed to say about this lot and their song? Look, here’s some stats for you OK? 16 weeks on the Top 40, 9 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 and the 8th best selling single of the year. Enough? No? Well, despite all that success, they never really consolidated on it to become the next big teen group did they? Sure, six hit singles followed it including two further Top Tenners but could you name any of them? Well, I looked them up and I do recall the follow up “Seventeen” but of the rest of them, the only title I recognise is a cover of Bread’s “Make It With You”, a blatant attempt at career-reviving if ever I saw one. Still, to be remembered for one massive hit song is no mean achievement. How many of us out there can boast the same?

Well, if I was struggling for words for Let Loose, what more is there to be said about Wet Wet Wet and “Love Is All Around” after an 11th week at the top of the charts? Well, I’m not going to say anything but instead refer back to Simon Mayo’s intro for it in which he says that when it first went to No 1 “Jürgen Klinsmann was just a cheating German”. I knew it! I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist making a comment about how the striker had signed for his beloved Spurs! I said so in the last post when I made mention that he’d signed for them on the day that TOTP aired and that it was a good job it was Mark Goodier as that week’s host and not Mayo as the latter would definitely have gone on about it and here he is a week later doing just that. Not just smug but predictable as well then.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Red Dragon featuring Brian and Tony Gold Compliments On Your KissNo
2The Brand New HeaviesMidnight At The OasisNo. but my wife had the album
3Future Sound Of LondonLifeformsNot for me thanks
4ShampooTroubleNope
5DJ MikoWhat’s UpHell no!
6Joe CockerThe Simple ThingsNah
7Carleen AndersonTrue SpiritNegative
8Let LooseCrazy For YouNo but my wife did
9Wet Wet WetLove Is All AroundI did not

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ldp8/top-of-the-pops-10081994

TOTP 28 MAY 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

When dance music transitioned from the clubs to the mainstream / Top 40 in a major way towards the end of the 80s, it presented TOTP with a major challenge in terms of how to feature these acts that weren’t your traditional pop stars. Mostly they weren’t up to the challenge. Then came the ‘year zero’ revamp under the stewardship of Stanley Appel. Would the new format be better suited to these problematic hits? Well, after a fair few attempts during the first eight months of the new era, the true test had arrived. The first three acts in the studio tonight are all peddling dance tunes. Given the responsibility of landing this tricky manoeuvre safely are presenters Mark Franklin and Femi Oke.

It’s straight in at the deep end with the opening act Future Sound Of London and their track “Papua New Guinea”. It turns out that there wasn’t just one person called Cobain who was making a name for himself in the early 90s musical landscape. Gary Cobain (doesn’t quite have the same ring as Kurt does it?) and Brian Dougans met as students in Manchester in their 80s with the latter pointing heavily towards what might be to come when he wrote and produced the ground breaking “Stakker Humanoid” single which was described by The Guardian as “the first truly credible UK acid techno record to break into the mainstream”. With Cobain contributing to the resulting album project, it led to the duo releasing material under various aliases until following “Stakker Humanoid” into the charts as Future Sound Of London (often abbreviated OMD like to FSOL).

Despite the fawning in the music press inkies, there was nothing for me in “Papa New Guinea”. The just didn’t get it. Apparently ot samples both Aussie art rockers Dead Can Dance and industrial electronic knob twiddlers Meat Beat Manifesto so the source material didn’t speak to me either. I did work with someone who was into Meat Beat Manifesto but she was never going to convince me of their charms.

So how did TOTP deal with the vexatious issue of showcasing an unfamiliar dance act? With a load of strobe lights and that grainy coloured overlay effect again of course. As a staging technique I thought it was weak I have to say. Oh and that blue with the stupid hat- what was that all about. @TOTPFacts sums my feelings up perfectly:

So, Future Sound Of London didn’t work for me on any level. “Papua New Guinea”? Give me “Aikea-Guinea” by Cocteau Twins any day. By the way, I can’t find a clip of the TOTP performance so the official promo video will have to do.

Next to “Friday I’m In Love” by The Cure which according to a Rolling Stone magazine article is a song that has caused Robert Smith many “Wild Mood Swings” it comes to his relationship with it. At times he has hated it for the level of fame and attention it attracted even disowning it and those who like it denouncing them as not being fans of The Cure. Conversely, he has also listed it as being one of his three favourite singles by the band ever.

It’s a well worn concept; the idea that the commercial success that the artist has craved is ultimately unsatisfying when it arrives and that what really matters is their ‘art’. There must be loads of examples of this throughout rock history. Off the top of my head, The Monkees famously rejected being chart puppets to fulfil their desire to make their own music on their own terms. When it comes to disowning your biggest hits, I saw Supergrass live around the early 2000s and they didn’t play “Alright” which seemed a bit childish. Oh and REM and “Shiny Happy People” for sure.

In the light of everything above, I was surprised to learn that “Friday I’m In Love” isn’t actually the band’s highest charting single. It peaked at No 6 but three years earlier “Lullaby” had made it to No 5.

We’re back on a dance tip now with the curious case of “Raving I’m Raving”. The Wedding Present spent 1992 entering the higher end of the Top 40 before crashing out immediately due to the limited amount of copies of each single that were pressed as part of their “Hit Parade” project. Shut Up And Dance had a similar chart arc but for a very different reason.

Formed in 1988, this electronic dance duo had released a series of idiosyncratically titled singles such as “Dance Before The Police Come” and “Autobiography Of A Crackhead” before hitting on the idea of basing their next release on Marc Cohn’s “Walking In Memphis”. Keeping the melody but replacing some of the original’s lyrics with the word raving (“put on my raving shoes” and of course the single’s title), it created a huge amount of interest and initial sales were enough to send it straight into the charts at No 2. Genius! Or was it?

Sadly for Shut Up And Dance founders PJ and Smiley (who heard Duncan when reading that last word?) they had failed to get copyright clearance from Cohn who soon got his lawyers on the case. Despite offers to give any royalties to charity, Cohn wasn’t having any of it and insisted that no further pressings of the single were made meaning that it was essentially deleted as soon as it came out. With no more copies available, the single dropped like a stone even to No 15 and then out of the chart altogether. The whole thing was over in three short but eventful weeks.

This TOTP performance was ultimately pointless in terms of increasing sales of the single as there were no more copies left to sell. That and the fact that Cohn wouldn’t even let them perform the track on TV hence we get a completely different song without the original melody or reworked Cohn lyrics. It’s just a different song altogether. Madness! For me, it wasn’t that the whole legal issue made the project a non starter – I didn’t get why it was seen as such a great idea in the first place. It almost seemed like a novelty song to my ears.

As for how TOTP dealt with the band’s appearance on the show, the smoke machines were put in full whack, there’s a lot of arm waving from both the studio audience and the artist (whose vocalist is doing his best Seal impression) and a computer graphic effect whereby the female singer has her head size reduced in ever decreasing frames. It’s all a bit rubbish really….like the song itself. Interestingly, they do try and address the fact that the ring featured isn’t the one that people went out and bought by having presenter Femi Oke describe it as the “TOTP remix”. That wasn’t fooling anybody though.

Yay! It’s Kriss Kross with “Jump” next! The heavy emphasis on the guys ;plus video extras) you know…jumping…with the associated jerky camera angle puts me in mind of “Jump Around” by House Of Pain but performed by Musical Youth perhaps.

What is it that they are actually rapping about? Apart from jumping obviously. Well the lyrics include lines like ‘bull crap is what I’m dumpin’ (ooer!) and ‘I love when a girl is like jockin’ which seems to mean a number of things from obsessing over someone with intense affection to copying the likeness of. I’m guessing it’s the latter here with Mack Daddy or indeed Daddy Mack liking it when girls copy their rapping… or dance moves…or even wearing their jeans back to front of course.

“Jump” peaked at No 2.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find…yes, another dance act. This time it’s Bassheads back again to follow up their Top 5 hit “Is There Anybody Out There?”. This time they’ve gone “Back To The Old School” but shouldn’t that be “Back To The Old Skool”? I found some reviews of the track online that describe it as having ‘massive old skool (yes spelt like that) break house beats’and being a ‘proper killer tune’. Like Ted on The Fast Show, I wouldn’t know anything about that sir – this sort of stuff really want my favourite subject at skool.

As for the staging of the performance, there’s loads more dry ice, a close up of a DJ type fella shouting “How’s everybody feelin’ out there?“ and at one the band are clearly asked to move about in slow motion so some visual effects can be added to make it look like they are leaving some kind of vapour trail behind each movement. It may have looked impressive in 1992 I guess but it looks plain dreadful today.

“Back To The Old School” peaked at No 12.

https://youtu.be/DJjubfaayA8

If I knew anything about the UK soul/ R’n’B scene of the early 90s then I would know all about this next artist. However, I didn’t and don’t and so have relied upon Wikipedia for this one. Don–E was actually Donald McLean (nothing to do with the “American Pie” hitmaker obvs) and he was quite the all rounder writing, producing and playing on his debut album “Unbreakable” from which this single “Love Makes The World Go Round” was taken.

One of the reasons I don’t know anything about this guy is because I don’t remember him at all. Nothing. Zip. Listening to him now, he’s got a definite Stevie Wonder flavour to him and puts me in mind a bit of Omar of “There’s Nothing Like This” fame. Ah now then. I’ve just got to the hit in his bio on Wikipedia that says he duetted with Omar on a track on his 2005 album “Try This”. I swear down I hadn’t read that before my earlier Omar reference.

That 2005 release was his first album for 10 years as his solo career had stalled after his initial success with “Love Makes The World Go Round” and he’d focussed instead on writing for and producing other artists. He seems to combine those duties and releasing his own material these days.

Three Breakers this week none of which would be seen in the show again. What a nonsense this feature has become. We start with Cud. I know at least one person who swears by these Leeds indie rockers but I only really know this single (“Rich And Strange”) I must admit. I did like it though. Just that right balance of leftfield yet tuneful with a driving guitar riff that reminds me of The Pixies.

It was taken from their third album “Asquarius” which was actually their first album for major label A&M having released their previous material on indie Imaginary Records. Wikipedia tells me that they referred to their sound as something called ‘Lion Pop’ which is a new genre on me. It seems to have been some sort of precursor to Britpop as far as I can make out though I don’t recall Cud being mentioned in that now much maligned bracket probably because they split in 1995. They reformed in 2006 and apparently Embrace (whom I love) keyboard player Mickey Dale is an occasional member of their line up. The things you learn from Wikipedia.

“Rich And Strange” peaked at No 24.

Mr. Big had more than one hit over here? I would have bet money on “To Be With You” being their only chart entry but here they are with something called “Just Take My Heart”. Obviously it’s terrible. In fact, is there a case to be made that at this very point in rock history that Mr. Big were the worst band in the world? Judging by this and their previous hit, they were certainly the most boring. Just look at some of the lyrics to this one:

‘I can’t imagine living my life after you’ve gone; wondering why so many questions have no answers’

My God! A love lorn teenager would be embarrassed by that and yet it was deemed good enough to be recorded as an actual song that would get played on the radio! Even their videos were terminally tedious. Just the band performing the song on black and white film. Mr.Big? Mr.Big Log more like.

“Just Take My Heart” peaked at Number No 26. They were never to be seen on the UK Top 40 again.

And now for something completely different…and far more interesting. For all the talk of the rise of grunge rock in the early 90s, we haven’t actually seen that much of it in TOTP. Look at this show for example – it’s like a bloody rave is going down in the studio! To rebalance that, here comes an all female band that were definitely and defiantly here to play some grimy, kick ass, heavy punk rock.

Although not actually from Seattle (they were from LA in fact) L7 seemed to be inextricably linked to grunge possibly because some of their early material was released on legendary label Subpop home of grunge protagonists Soundgarden, Mudhoney and of course Nirvana. That link was strengthened by the fact that their third album “Bricks Are Heavy” was produced by Bitch Vig, the man nicknamed ‘the never mind man’ for his work on Nirvana’s stellar second studio album.

From that album came this single “Everglade” a high speed riot of their brand of punk infused heavy metal. To think that within four years, the concept of all female band would have morphed into the template that allowed the Spice Girls to dominate planet pop.

Of course, along with their music there was an uncompromising attitude and approach that would lead to a number of unforgettable controversies. I was among the disbelieving TV audience that Friday night watching anarchic Channel 4 TV show The Word when lead vocalist Donita Sparks whipped down her jeans and knickers to finish performing “Pretend We’re Dead” nude from the waist down. This incident occurred on the same show that they had a secret camera in Oliver Reed’s dressing room which Donita thought was pretty shitty so she thought she’d add her own brand of f****d up anarchy to the chaos. Watching it back I felt sorry for the bass player who thinks she’s stealing the show by mounting the drum rider only to trim around and see Sparks with her fanny out! As one of the user comments in the clip below just so succinctly puts it – ‘Gash!’ How nice.

This week’s ‘exclusive’ performance comes from Lisa Stansfield who’s flown in from Berlin to be on the show according to presenter Mark Franklin. I’m not sure it was worth the flight. Lisa has a fine voice but this single (“Set Your Loving Free”) didn’t have a lot going for it to my ears. I’ve only just watched Lisa’s performance of it and already I’ve forgotten how it goes. Bland doesn’t cover it. No it really doesn’t- I’m going to have to find another word. Dreary? No. Lacklustre? Nope. Vapid? Yes, vapid is the word.

It was the fourth single taken from her “Real Love” album. If you’re going to release four tracks from an album, by the time you get to the fourth it needs to be a memorable tune I say. Unfortunately “Set Your Loving Free” wasn’t. The daft thing is that there was a great song on the album that went unreleased…

“Set Your Loving Free” only made it to No 28 but Lisa returned at the end of the year with a track that must have made her a fair wad over the years; not because it was a chart topper…ahem…all around the world (it peaked at No 10 in the UK) but due to the fact that it was included on the best selling soundtrack of all time. I refer to The Bodyguard of course with Lisa’s contribution being “Someday (I’m Coming Back)”. Nice work if you can get it.

And so to the No 1 which again is a dance tune of sorts though nothing to do with that mad ‘raving’ nonsense. KWS are into their fourth week at the top with their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go”.

I said in a recent post that there was some legal controversy over this record and so there was. A very similar version had been recorded by German dance act Double You who had big hit with it all over Europe. Wanting to get a slice of the action, indie label Network Records sought distribution rights for the single in the UK but failed to secure them. Their solution was to get an act of their own to record it and put that out instead. Enter KWS. It proved to be a winning move with a UK No 1 disc and US Top Tenner. Pushing their luck, it was released in Germany and went to No 7 before legal action from Double You forced it to be withdrawn from sale. It fell out of the charts the following week making it the single with the highest position to drop out of the national charts ever. Does any of this sound familiar? For Double You read Marc Cohn and for KWS read Shut Up And Dance. 1992 was a good year to be a lawyer in the music industry.

Ghjj

Order of appearance ArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Future Sound Of LondonPapua New GuineaCertainly not
2The CureFriday I’m In LoveNot the single but I have it on a Greatest Hits CD of theirs
3Shut Up And Dance Raving I’m RavingHell no
4Kris KrossJumpIt was fun but not a purchase
5BassheadsBack To The Old SchoolI literally rather would have gone back to school – no
6Don-ELove Makes The World Go RoundNah
7CudRich And StrangeLiked it, didn’t ‘t buy it
8Mr. BigJust Take My HeartNo no no….
9L7EvergladeSee 7 above
10Lisa StansfieldSet Your Loving FreeNo chance
11KWSPlease Don’t GoAnd no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0014j5w/top-of-the-pops-28051992